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Wednesday, September 16, 2015

I admit I have abandoned this blog and used it just to read other people's posts, but this time I'm determined (well, at least for now) to diligently update my blog. Hopefully this time my determination will last longer than last time :p

For my new beginning, I want to start by discussing my love-hate relationship with pate a choux a.k.a. cream puff or eclair. My family absolutely love cream puffs so I often bake them for snacks or after-meal dessert. The mother of all cream puffs to me is Beard Papa's Japanese-style cream puff with thin crispy shell and generous creamy vanilla filling and I use it as a standard when I judge my homemade puffs. Although I think I have found a recipe for the vanilla filling that's on par with Beard Papa's, I'm still in a quest of finding the right pate a choux recipe. I have tried many recipes from books, blogs, recipe websites; some of them are okay, but a lot of them result in disappointment. They are either too flat, too dense, too doughy, or not hollow enough. I never take pictures of the failed puffs I've made, but trust me there are plenty.

How come pate a choux is so difficult to master? Actually, if you look at the ingredients and instructions for making cream puff or eclair, they all seem quite innocent. No hard-to-find ingredients or complicated baking techniques. Most recipes start with the same components: some kind of liquid, butter, flour, eggs, sometimes salt or sugar. What makes them different?

1. The type of liquid
A lot of recipes insist in using milk to get more flavor into the pate a choux dough, while others argue that the fat and protein in the milk disturbs gluten formation so using water is better. According to my experience, recipes with half milk and half water works best because you get the richness and flavor from milk while water helps with gluten formation.

2. The type of flour
Most recipes only call for all-purpose flour, but the more successful recipes use part bread flour and part pastry flour. The higher gluten content in bread flour enables the dough to absorb more eggs, which add moisture to the dough, and thus helps more steam to form during baking resulting in better expansion.

3. The amount of eggs
I think this is what makes or breaks your pate a choux. Too much egg, your dough will be too soft so it will not rise properly and stay flat, the inside will be wet and doughy as well. Too little egg will also result in improper rising and your choux will be dense and not hollow as it is supposed to be. You have to judge based on experience whether you have added enough eggs or not. Most of the times I use less than what is stated in the recipes. Remember, it's essential to add the eggs by grams, because your eggs may be different in size with what the recipe writer used. If you add the right amount of eggs, your dough should look like this (Advanced Bread and Pastry by Michael Suas)

As for the cooking techniques, here are some important points:
1. Cook the dough until a skin forms on the surface of your pan then let it cool before you add the eggs.

2. Pipe the dough straight up into a rounded shape for cream puffs or pipe 11-13 centimeter straight lines at a 45 degree angle for eclairs, dab a little of water onto your fingers and smooth out any pointy peaks. You can use either plain round tip or star tip for cream puffs, but for eclairs it is best to use star tip. The ridges created by a star tip allow the dough to expand more uniformly.

3. For cream puffs, put butter cookie disks or craquelin on top of the dough balls to prevent them from cracking and add a little crunch. This is optional, so you can omit this if you like plain cream puff shells.

4. Bake at high temperature first then lower the temperature and bake them until thoroughly cooked will prevent your puffs from deflating when you take them out of the oven.

Pheww, I guess that's all. Below are recipes for my favorite vanilla cream filling and pate a choux (so far), hopefully you will like them as much as I do :)

Method:
1. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together then add the flour.
2. Place the dough in between two pieces of parchment paper and roll it out to 1/8 inch thick.
3. Put the dough sheet in the freezer until your pate a choux is piped.
4. Cut the sheet into circles slightly bigger than your choux balls and place them on top of the balls.
5. Follow the baking instructions for the choux.

Method:
1. Sift the two types of flour together. Set aside.
2. Bring the milk, water, salt and sugar to a boil in a saucepan.
3. Turn off the heat and add the flour mix immediately until a uniform dough forms.
4. Turn on the heat and stir the dough until a skin forms on the pan surface.
5. Transfer the dough into a mixing bowl and let it cool.
6. With a paddle attachment, mix the dough on medium speed while adding the eggs a little at a time. You will probably need less or more than 210 g. You have added enough eggs when your dough looks like the picture above.
7. Pipe the dough into rounds with a round or star tip on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Place the craquelin disks on top of each dough balls.
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 C for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180 C for another 15 minutes. FYI, I use convection oven with no upper heat.
9. Once done, take the puffs out of the oven and let them cool before filling.

Method:
1. Whisk together egg yolks, sugar and corn starch in a mixing bowl.
2. Boil the milk and slowly drizzle it into the yolk mixture while whisking continuously.
3. Return the mixture into the pan and heat it on medium heat until the mixture thickens.
4. Strain the custard into a clean bowl and add in the vanilla paste and butter.
5. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the custard and let it cool to room temperature.
6. Whip the heavy cream until soft peak and fold it into the custard.
7. Fill the cream puffs with the vanilla filling and store in the fridge until serving.

Pate a choux is very versatile. You can modify the flavor of the shell and fill it with whatever you like, such as cream cheese frosting, fresh fruits, chocolate cream, or even brownies! The possibility is endless, so you can be as creative as you can. I hope this post is informative for you pate a choux aficionados out there. Here are some puffs and eclairs I made recently, enjoy :)

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Hours turned to days. Days became months. Yeap, it's been months since my last post. Life has been crazy hectic lately, much crazier than usual. My day job at the office has pretty much sucked the life out of me every day & I have to conjure up extra energy to bake for Miel after work.

June has been an unexpectedly busy time for Miel, with June brides submitting macaron orders for their wedding souvenirs. So, yeah, 24 hours a day are no longer enough for me -_-" Let alone writing a blog for fun, I think I don't even have enough time to sleep lately. Oh well, life goes on..

I checked my blog reading list a few days ago & the Mac Attack for this month popped up: "Vacation Macarons". Sounds fun. Coincidentally, I had to make a Spiderman macaron cake for my customer. Hey, what can represent vacation better than a Summer blockbuster cake? :p The cake is salted chocolate cake & the macarons are red velvet Spidey macs. I also attach some interesting pieces I made for my customers, enjoy :)

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Today's one of the few less-hectic days at work, so I get the chance to update my blog again, yeay!! 2011 was over, 2012 has started. Rabbit year was great, but I'm looking forward to much better prospect in the year of dragon :) So far, the dragon has treated me quite well and I've had a pretty good start in 2012. First, there's the Chinese New Year on Jan 23rd. Miel Patisserie's business was awesomely busy because of that, macaron and cake orders were pouring in. Then, the January edition of Bakery Indonesia magazine which contained my profile as Miel Patisserie's owner/chef was finally published! Yeay to that :D Although I look severely bloated in the picture, I still love love love the cover & words are not enough to express how grateful I am towards Bakery Indonesia Magazine team :) Hopefully I can keep up the good work for the rest of the year, crossing my fingers.

As I browsed through the blogs I follow, I saw this month's Mac-Attack's theme: Razzle Dazzle. So, I decided to join again with my Chinese New Year macs. I think they fit the theme quite well :) Thanks so much Deeba & Jamie for the exciting topic. Below are the pics as usual ^^